AMC protests Dish Network drop by plaguing NYC with zombies

So you’re a fan of The Walking Dead or other zombie-related media — so are we! But what would you actually do if you came across a brain-craving walker in real life? Pedestrians on the streets of New York City found that out first hand when a crew of zombies were sent roaming about as part of a protest against DISH Network after the television provider moved AMC to a different channel then ultimately dropped it entirely.

As you can see in the video, some people looked inquisitive, some were confused, most hopped away in terror. The zombies incarnate the lives of pretty much everyone in New York: construction workers, food vendors, mailmen, and more. Our favorite scene is the spooked little kid with the balloon hat. The message ends with a zombie dragging away a DISH satellite, claiming that zombies don’t actually belong in the real world and only on television (cable television, no less).

The Walking Dead returns to AMC on October 14, and protestors have gathered on PutZombiesBack.com to hopefully get the channel back on DISH Network before the fact. “We know DISH has been urging AMC fans to pay additional monies to see their favorite shows online,” AMC said in a statement through the protesting website. “It seems unusual to us for a television provider to ask their subscribers to pay extra money to see the same shows that they are already paying for, and that their neighbors are getting, as part of their basic TV subscriptions.”

PutZombiesBack.com goes further to claim that it thinks the dispute has nothing to do with fees and instead, encourage AMC fans to switch cable providers entirely. “The simple truth is that DISH is using their consumers as pawns to attempt to gain leverage in a lawsuit involving an old and unrelated business venture that has nothing to do with AMC, nothing to do with our shows or fees, and certainly nothing to do with DISH subscribers, who just want to watch the shows they love and are paying DISH for,” the site states before providing numbers for subscribers to consider switching their providers.

While the zombie publicity stunt certainly will get the word out about the campaign, do you think it will be effective in getting people to ditch DISH, or getting DISH to add AMC back to its lineup? Either way, the option to go with zombies certainly seems more reasonable than a pop up meth lab, Breaking Bad-style in the middle of Time Square, or a slew of advertising creatives from the 1960s drinking and smoking at a midtown bar a la Mad Men.